Uber Rolling Out Driverless Cars

[Ray From Cleveland]

I was wondering about all those poor Indian/Russian taxi drivers. Um, we trusted them when they didn't seem to even understand English or basic traffic laws. What do we do with all those "immigrants" losing jobs to robots?

 

[Montrovant]

And then when the police want to arrest you they will tap in to the system and override the car's inputs, causing the car to deliver you to the PD front doorstep.

As should happen to anyone too stupid to know what the "manual override" does or where the fuse panel is located.

Your optimism is admirable, but mistaken. There will be no manual override. The whole point is to remove direct human control from the equation. Just ask Google. They insist that humans are already more dangerous than robotic driving. Fucking idiots can't seem to get it through their heads that it's the automation that makes things dangerous for humans.

It's not sarcasm.

Why does automation make things dangerous for humans?

 

[GHook93]

A century ago, we employed 50 percent of our population in agriculture to feed our nation.

Now, due to the wonders of technology, it only takes about 3 percent of our population to feed us, and they are producing more food than in all of human history.

What would you make of someone decrying the loss of agriculture jobs who felt we needed to employ 50 percent of the country on farms?

You'd say there were seriously misguided, yes?

It's the same thing with these demagogues and manufacturing.

Let's travel back in time 60 years...

FARMER: What will my toddler son do when he grows up if he isn't going to be a farmer, dad blast it?

PSYCHIC: (*peers into crystal ball*) Your son is going to be in charge of the maintenance for satellite uplink/downlink terminals at Verizon.

FARMER: What's a satellite, and WHAT THE HELL IS A VERIZON!?!

PSYCHIC: I don't know, but if I were you, I'd be whipping him with a switch if he doesn't get straight A's in mathematics and science.

FARMER: Will he be handsome? Will he be rich?

PSYCHIC: Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be. The future's not ours to see...

Farmers left the fields because there was a plentiful jobs that were higher paying, in the city and not nearly as back breaking. That was the difference.

You do have a very good point. However not all revolutions are the same. The industrial revolution brought a ton of jobs and opportunity. The cyber/computer revolution did the same. However the rise in automation which will eventually lead to smart robots will have a different effect. This revolution will not be like the past.

Many jobs will be fully automated. Service jobs will be automated, manufacturing will be automated, but so will many white collar jobs. I could easily see many field of law getting automated, accounting will foresure be automated, so many fields will be automated and I don't see replacement jobs taking it's place like in past revolutions.

 

[Al Azar]

Sounds like there will be a lot of opportunities in writing code, and those workers are going to need the same products and services as today's workers need. There will surely be wrinkles, but I doubt that the fabric of society will tear.

Consider this. Suppose workers are making $20/hr and someone comes along with a robot that can do the same job for the equivalent of $10/hr. Bad news for the workers, right?

But only until the maker of the robot becomes so essential that he figures he's entitled to charge more for his popular robots. Then the human worker may look like the better deal.

The dynamics generally find a mean. Things average out over time. There will be bumps along the road but resistance to change should ensure that transition to widespread automation will be manageable.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Sounds like there will be a lot of opportunities in writing code, and those workers are going to need the same products and services as today's workers need. There will surely be wrinkles, but I doubt that the fabric of society will tear.

Consider this. Suppose workers are making $20/hr and someone comes along with a robot that can do the same job for the equivalent of $10/hr. Bad news for the workers, right?

But only until the maker of the robot becomes so essential that he figures he's entitled to charge more for his popular robots. Then the human worker may look like the better deal.

The dynamics generally find a mean. Things average out over time. There will be bumps along the road but resistance to change should ensure that transition to widespread automation will be manageable.

I won't be here when that time comes, but I wonder....... we have a working society of people that can do different things. You can't make a lawyer out of a plumber. You can't make a plumber out of a lawyer.

The jobs being taken over by automation are those that manual labor currently does. So what will we do with the people that are only geared for manual labor?

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Anyone have their PC do exactly what they want every time?
Siri always answers you accurately every Time? (Look what my auto spell just did!)

I would be happy if they could just get voice recognition down to a science; especially with those stupid automated phones. The machine prompts you to tell it what your problem is, so you do, then it replies "I did not understand your answer." Well no shit, maybe because you're a stupid machine????

Then you have to stay on the phone hitting multiple buttons trying your best to speak to a real human being. It's aggravating.

 

[Al Azar]

Sounds like there will be a lot of opportunities in writing code, and those workers are going to need the same products and services as today's workers need. There will surely be wrinkles, but I doubt that the fabric of society will tear.

Consider this. Suppose workers are making $20/hr and someone comes along with a robot that can do the same job for the equivalent of $10/hr. Bad news for the workers, right?

But only until the maker of the robot becomes so essential that he figures he's entitled to charge more for his popular robots. Then the human worker may look like the better deal.

The dynamics generally find a mean. Things average out over time. There will be bumps along the road but resistance to change should ensure that transition to widespread automation will be manageable.

I won't be here when that time comes, but I wonder....... we have a working society of people that can do different things. You can't make a lawyer out of a plumber. You can't make a plumber out of a lawyer.

The jobs being taken over by automation are those that manual labor currently does. So what will we do with the people that are only geared for manual labor?

Won't we always need electricians, plumbers, steamfitters, boilermakers, the trades in general?

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Won't we always need electricians, plumbers, steamfitters, boilermakers, the trades in general?

Yes we will, but I work with some people that don't have the intelligence to do simple multiplication. That's not a putdown, it's just the way it is. I actually feel bad for those people because it's not something they can control. They are good people too. They come to work everyday, work hard, are very responsible, but because of their limited intelligence, there is only so much money they can make because there are only so many jobs they can do.

Once even those jobs are gone, then what?

 

[Indeependent]

Won't we always need electricians, plumbers, steamfitters, boilermakers, the trades in general?

Yes we will, but I work with some people that don't have the intelligence to do simple multiplication. That's not a putdown, it's just the way it is. I actually feel bad for those people because it's not something they can control. They are good people too. They come to work everyday, work hard, are very responsible, but because of their limited intelligence, there is only so much money they can make because there are only so many jobs they can do.

Once even those jobs are gone, then what?

There will be Smart Devices that will perform a lot of those measurement functions.

 

[Al Azar]

Won't we always need electricians, plumbers, steamfitters, boilermakers, the trades in general?

Yes we will, but I work with some people that don't have the intelligence to do simple multiplication. That's not a putdown, it's just the way it is. I actually feel bad for those people because it's not something they can control. They are good people too. They come to work everyday, work hard, are very responsible, but because of their limited intelligence, there is only so much money they can make because there are only so many jobs they can do.

Once even those jobs are gone, then what?

I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that over any 20-year period you pick, there will be jobs at the end of the period that didn't exist at the beginning, and jobs we had at the beginning are gone for good. It's a continuous process.

It's not as if on Jan 1, 2020, 40% of our workforce will be getting pink slips. It's a process, not an event.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that over any 20-year period you pick, there will be jobs at the end of the period that didn't exist at the beginning, and jobs we had at the beginning are gone for good. It's a continuous process.

It's not as if on Jan 1, 2020, 40% of our workforce will be getting pink slips. It's a process, not an event.

Oh, I understand that. But it's not like we are going to ever eliminate lower intelligent people. They will always be there today, in 20 years, in 50 years, in 100 years.

Back in the 70's when unions were strong and automation weak, a lower intelligence person could make a living, and a good one at that depending on where they were able to gain employment. You didn't need to be a genius to mount tires onto cars on an assembly line, or ride around on a floor sweeping machine for 50K a year, or sit at a table and inspect parts for defects. So those people had the ability to make a living.

What automation didn't take over, outsourcing did, and now such jobs are located outside of the country. The people that do those jobs in the US today make very low wages. And like I said earlier, automation targets those jobs, and when those jobs are gone, these people will have no way to make a decent living.

 

[Al Azar]

So what shall be done? Should the government create make-work jobs, lot do you think the private sector will step to the plate?

 

[SwimExpert]

And then when the police want to arrest you they will tap in to the system and override the car's inputs, causing the car to deliver you to the PD front doorstep.

As should happen to anyone too stupid to know what the "manual override" does or where the fuse panel is located.

Your optimism is admirable, but mistaken. There will be no manual override. The whole point is to remove direct human control from the equation. Just ask Google. They insist that humans are already more dangerous than robotic driving. Fucking idiots can't seem to get it through their heads that it's the automation that makes things dangerous for humans.

It's not sarcasm.

Why does automation make things dangerous for humans?

Because automation does not care if it kills you. It merely wants to complete its algorithm.

 

[Weatherman2020]

Anyone have their PC do exactly what they want every time?
Siri always answers you accurately every Time? (Look what my auto spell just did!)

I would be happy if they could just get voice recognition down to a science; especially with those stupid automated phones. The machine prompts you to tell it what your problem is, so you do, then it replies "I did not understand your answer." Well no shit, maybe because you're a stupid machine????

Then you have to stay on the phone hitting multiple buttons trying your best to speak to a real human being. It's aggravating.

Voice recognition, oy vey.
Call Mary.
Calling Jim Davidson.

I'm never using an automated car.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

No driverless rides for me. A Rollercoaster without the rails? Pass lol

 

[Weatherman2020]

Anyone have their PC do exactly what they want every time?
Siri always answers you accurately every Time? (Look what my auto spell just did!)

Yet PCs have taken a huge leap in just this century alone. Siri didn't even exist four years ago.

Huge leap into the shitter. My 286 with a 12mb hard drive was more reliable. These days programmers are so lazy basic programs are 300MB and require an update every week.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

So what shall be done? Should the government create make-work jobs, lot do you think the private sector will step to the plate?

I think it's more in the power of the consumer. Let's take a look:

The American consumer is obsessed with cheap. That's the reason Walmart is number one today; that's the reason our jobs went overseas; that's the reason online shopping is becoming more and more popular.

But let's say that the American consumer rejected foreign products. They refused to shop at Walmart. They boycotted companies that used foreign customer service. They boycotted companies that offered Spanish instead of English. Do you think we would have a job problem today?

Everything including the demise of American jobs is driven by consumer demand--not politics. If we are to change our course, it's up to the consumers to do it.

But as long as our only concern is cheap, we will see more and more self-checkout lines at our stores. We will see more and more people flocking to stores that carry foreign and slave labor products. We will have more and more foreign customer service from India. We will have more and more automation.

It's all up to the consumer, and that includes those who might patronize self-drven automobiles by a taxi service.

 

[Montrovant]

As should happen to anyone too stupid to know what the "manual override" does or where the fuse panel is located.

Your optimism is admirable, but mistaken. There will be no manual override. The whole point is to remove direct human control from the equation. Just ask Google. They insist that humans are already more dangerous than robotic driving. Fucking idiots can't seem to get it through their heads that it's the automation that makes things dangerous for humans.

It's not sarcasm.

Why does automation make things dangerous for humans?

Because automation does not care if it kills you. It merely wants to complete its algorithm.

Automation doesn't miss seeing you because it's busy texting, either.

 

[Divine Wind]

Huge leap into the shitter. My 286 with a 12mb hard drive was more reliable. These days programmers are so lazy basic programs are 300MB and require an update every week.

And in your day you'd walk to school through the snow barefoot uphill.....both ways!

IMO, it isn't laziness so much as 1) the drive for companies to issue new products quickly and 2) increased sophistication of hackers means programs have to be constantly updated to plug holes or shore up defenses.

 

[Weatherman2020]

Huge leap into the shitter. My 286 with a 12mb hard drive was more reliable. These days programmers are so lazy basic programs are 300MB and require an update every week.

And in your day you'd walk to school through the snow barefoot uphill.....both ways!

IMO, it isn't laziness so much as 1) the drive for companies to issue new products quickly and 2) increased sophistication of hackers means programs have to be constantly updated to plug holes or shore up defenses.

It's laziness. There isn't a software ever released now that's not riddled with bugs.